Axios Salt Lake City
May 21, 2026
1 big thing: Tick bite ER visits soar
Tick bites are sending a record rate of people in western states to the ER this spring, according to new CDC data.
Why it matters: "These tiny biters can make you seriously sick," Alison Hinckley, epidemiologist with the CDC, said in a statement.
- An estimated 31 million Americans are bitten by a tick each year, and roughly 476,000 are treated for Lyme disease alone, per the CDC.
Reality check: Lyme disease is spread by the western black-legged tick, which does live in Utah — but encounters are rare, per state health officials.
Zoom in: The most common tick-related illness here is Colorado tick fever: hardly a clambake, but less serious than Lyme disease.
- Symptoms include fever, chills, headache, body aches and a tired feeling.
- It's usually mild, but in rare cases, patients may develop a more serious illness that affects the central nervous system, per the CDC.
The latest: Utah tick encounters are most common from now until about mid-July.
- They usually first appear after the snow melts — which happened early this year here and throughout the West.
By the numbers: The rate of ER visits for tick bites in western states during April was up more than 40 percent from April 2025, according to preliminary data from the CDC's Tick Bite Tracker.
- In almost every region of the U.S, weekly rates of ER visits for tick bites are the highest for this time of year since 2017, the CDC reports.
The big picture: Climate change is helping ticks multiply and spread into new areas, with warmer, more humid springs and summers fueling bigger populations, said Goudarz Molaei, who directs the Tick and Tick-Borne Disease Surveillance Program at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station.
Between the lines: Lyme is the most common tick-borne illness in the U.S., but ticks also spread other serious diseases, including Rocky Mountain spotted fever, babesiosis and alpha-gal syndrome.
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